


Leave Order

by nightsofreylo



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Body Image, Body Worship, Boobgate 2017, Come Marking, Established Relationship, Eventual Body Acceptance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Lingerie, Long-Distance Force Bond, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 01:25:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11243403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsofreylo/pseuds/nightsofreylo
Summary: When Rey is granted a leave order by the Resistance, she takes a dropship with a few other fighters to the nearby moon of High Noktari, where she discovers that core world standards of beauty are very different from those she has encountered in the past.





	Leave Order

Leave orders come less often than rain on Jakku, and with just as little warning. Rey takes the few days the Resistance grants her without question, hopping a dropship with a few fortunate others to the nearby moon of High Noktari. Rose and Jessika are in the same rotation as Rey, and when the leave order comes through from dispatch, they shriek with delight as though they are headed to a resort and not one of the quarter’s most densely populated trading posts.

Noktari is not a particularly scenic planet: industrial and commercial, with illuminated, sweeping high rises and a dark underbelly to the cityscape that Rey finds overwhelming. The noise, the white-blue artificial lights that drown out the stars, and the lack of color in the gleaming metal buildings are all unnatural and harsh, grating on Rey’s senses. The people press in from all sides, bodies brushing hers and making her nervous at the constant onslaught of sensation.

When they are forced to fight their way onto the packed public transport, Rey nearly gets off and heads back to the landing platform. Would it really be so bad, to spend her five standards curled up in her bunk? She could wake up early, but lay in bed until her stomach or her bladder forces her out. She could catch the late breakfast shift, when the food is fresh and warm, instead of rushing to the the crack-of-dawn pilot’s meal where the service droids distribute leftover portions from the night before. She could train a little, read a little, take a long soak in the bath instead of a five-minute shower.

And at night, when the hallways grow still and quiet, she could slip into Kylo Ren’s room and allow him to pleasure her until they are both exhausted. Except with the leave order, she wouldn’t have to get up early the next morning. They could take their time, savoring the long hours to spend together. Rey has never stayed the night in his quarters, and suddenly the thought of waking him in the early hours of the morning is tantalizing. Would he be different after a night of rest than he is at the end of the day, weary from the weight of the deck officer’s wary glances and the whispers that seemed to follow him through the ship? Would he take her slowly, lazily, lingering on all the soft places, his body still heavy with sleep?

But she and Kylo are on different rotations, so even though she has permission to leave, Kylo still has his job to do. Not that he holds any sort of rank within the Resistance troops. The commanders are still suspicious of him, as though they think that any day now, Ren might go crawling back to his master. Kylo has been given no official position on the ship and no access to any valuable information. He isn’t even allowed to carry a weapon.

He’s found other ways to make himself useful, impressing her with his resourcefulness, his willingness to work on crappy maintenance projects below deck that no one else wants to tackle. One morning a few months after his return, Rey had nearly passed out from shock when she’d walked onto deck thirty-two, the training deck, to find him running sims with the recruits. Sixteen and seventeen-year-old rising pilots, yelling and cheering on their peers as they battled illusory star destroyers and TIE fighters...and Kylo was right next to them, giving orders and instruction, guiding and encouraging and...smiling. He was smiling.

Rey visited his room that night, and every night after, chasing the taste of that faint laughter on his lips. She is not foolish enough to think that their joining was a purely physical connection, a release they both craved after so many years of denying their feelings in the name of their respective causes. No, the bond between them has always run deeper than that, and she doubts that she could find even a fraction of that emotional connection with any other man.

But she knows their connection is also fragile. Their trust is a tenuous thread that Rey fears might snap under the pressure of the outside world.

When the leave order was granted, she’d offered to remain behind on the ship anyway, worrying that what she and Kylo had between them was too new and delicate to be left on its own for even a day.

But he’d kissed her gently and murmured, “Go. You should see everything there is to see in this galaxy. I’ll be here when you get back.”

So she had gone with her friends to High Noktari, the blue world glittering below them with the promise of a new adventure. Her excitement has quickly faded in the face of the blinding lights and dull roar of the crowds. By the time they reach the hotel, part of Rey wishes that she had ignored Kylo and stayed behind on the ship. She has a splitting headache.

Rose and Jess are determined to have a good time regardless. After a short shower and a bite to eat, they drag Rey back out into the high-energy streets of Noktari South, promising that it won’t be as bad as the city center.

For the most part, they’re right. Everything in the shopping district is less dense, allowing Rey to breathe easier as they flit from shop to shop. The storefronts are illuminated with light, beckoning passersby to come in and spend their hard-earned credits.

“We’re lucky we came here off-peak,” laughs Jess. “Can you imagine this place just before the Festival of Lights?”

Rey doesn’t want to imagine it. The vast complex is like a city in itself. There are shops filled with glittering jewelry that Rey could never in a thousand years afford, bakeries offering tiny sweets no bigger than the pad of her thumb, and liquor shops that promise flasks of true Corellian wine for half the price they might have sold for in the Core regions. From the open doors of restaurants, heavy, spicy aromas waft toward her, making her stomach grumble.

Rey wants nothing except the company of her friends, content to watch as Jess and Rose fawn over pretty necklaces, the latest holotech devices, and some items that Rey isn’t sure serve any purpose at all except decoration.

“Come on,” Rose says quickly, a wide storefront catching her eye. A shy smile crosses her face.

“Rose Tico, you better spill everything,” Jess gasps. “Right now.”

“It’s nothing,” Rose says, jutting out her chin. “I just want to buy something nice.”

“For your boyfriend?” Jess asks knowingly.

“For myself,” Rose says matter-of-factly, marching into the store with a determined look on her face.

Rey follows her inside, confused by Jess’s disproportionate response to the simple storefront. The moment she crosses the threshold, however, her mouth instantly goes dry and it feels like her lungs have forgotten how to process oxygen. It takes a full minute for her heart to start working properly again. There is nothing - absolutely nothing - in this store that Rose could possibly buy for the sole purpose of using alone.

Rey recognizes some of the garments as underclothes. Scraps of fabric, thin as a nightmoth’s wings...corsets made of white bone and gossamer panels, sheer nightgowns of black silk and bird feathers, bras constructed entirely of illusion lace. Some items are so tiny, so deconstructed, that in Rey’s opinion they can hardly be categorized as undergarments.

“Finn won’t know what hit him,” mutters Jess, shaking her head, a hint of a laugh in her voice.

Rey isn’t sure what to do as Jess and Rose swoon over the merits of the different styles on the displays. She has no experience with this sort of thing. Nervously, she glances at the price tag on a pretty lace number, and blanches: fifteen hundred credits! For a slip of fabric barely large enough to cover anything important!

She takes a deep breath, looking up at the walls. Staring down at the shoppers are stunning photos of women - human and humanoid alike - showcasing the designerwear, all in varying states of undress. A wide-eyed Twi'lek girl twirls one of her head tentacles innocently, her full breasts highlighted by a tight, contoured corset. A statuesque blonde human reclines on a couch, her back arched, her body smoothed and toned. A see-through lace bra barely covers her chest, the rosy peaks of her nipples visible through the pale blue fabric.

As Rey takes in those holos, she begins to notice patterns: the women are inviting and alluring, their eyes hooded with desire, their cheeks flushed and their lips stained bright. They are hairless, without blemish, every inch of their uniform skin bare and on display.

Rey has seen women naked before: in Niima outpost on bathing day, in the Resistance changing rooms. She had always assumed that the variety among them was normal. That uneven breasts and jiggling hips and scars and beauty marks in odd places were to be expected. She had given little thought to her own appearance, even when she’d joined Kylo in his bed - her body functioned just fine, and he was always ready for her, a male possessiveness in his gaze whenever they were alone together.

Now, she wonders if she has been incredibly naive. Kylo had grown up in the Core, raised as royalty. He was educated and handsome, and he would have had access to any woman he wanted, women like the ones displayed here. Women who didn’t wear standard-issue flight wrappings to seduce their partners. Women who were willing whenever he needed them, meticulously clean and well-dressed, who would probably service him in ways that Rey doesn’t have the courage or experience to do.

Her breasts are small, so small in comparison to the beautiful subjects on these walls. Her hips don’t flare out enough from her waist. Her body is too efficient, too thin, too unforgiving.  

She is not enough. There is not enough of her to even fill his hands. She blinks back tears stubbornly, shocked by how visceral her reaction is.

A brief flicker of concern travels down the bond, as if somewhere over her head, Kylo has sensed her sudden and overwhelming sense of inferiority. She shoves him out, cutting him off before he can pinpoint the source of her insecurity.

He gets the message, that quick tug on the bond stopping immediately.

“Come on,” Jess says, huffing out a sigh. “We’ll never afford any of this.”

Rey follows her and Rose to the back of the store, to a smaller table and a few racks where the less expensive items are kept. They are simpler than the dramatic pieces at the front, but every bit as revealing.

“You have to try something on,” Rose insists, handing Rey a matching set of seafoam silk that is worth a year of portions. “Even if you don’t buy it.”

“I can’t,” Rey mumbles. “I don’t need anything.”

“It’s not about need,” says Jess dramatically. “It’s about _want_. And I want _that_ corset.”

As Jess runs off to hunt down whatever alluring piece has grabbed her attention, Rose moves closer to Rey.

“I didn’t mean to pressure you,” she says apologetically. “You don’t have to try on anything, if you don’t want. But I bet...I bet he’d like anything you pick out.”

It’s the closest Rey’s ever gotten to someone approving of her relationship with Kylo. They are hardly a public couple, preferring to keep the more intimate aspects of their relationship away from judgmental eyes. It hadn’t occurred to Rey that people might notice that she and Kylo are something closer than allies, or tentative friends.

Rey bites her lip, waving her hand towards the holos. “Do men...really like that?”

Rose shrugs. “Depends on the man. I mean...different guys, different tastes. But I’m pretty sure most men, if they’re with a woman they really like, probably wouldn’t complain if she came back to the ship with anything from this store.”

Rey looks down at the soft wisps of silk that glide over her fingertips. “It just doesn’t seem very...ah, practical.”  
  
“Good thing it doesn’t have to stay on for very long then,” Rose says with a wink, heading off towards the fitting rooms. “Start with something simple.”

Rey wanders the back of the store for a few minutes, a little bit of the tension in her chest eased by Rose’s reassurance. She has absolutely no idea what, if anything, will look good on her, so she takes Rose’s advice and picks something simple. Something that won’t take too much courage to wear.

She sits down in the chair outside the fitting room, waiting on Rose. Jess returns with the corset: a complicated, scorching red number with the tiniest pair of underwear Rey has ever seen.

“What are those?” Jess asks, narrowing her eyes at the pale blue fabric in Rey’s lap.

“I’m trying them on?” Rey offers uncertainly.

Jess parts her lips as if she’s about to argue, but then closes them. “Okay.”  
  
Rose emerges from behind the door, modeling a short, midnight blue nightgown with a plunging neckline. And then she trades it for a pretty pink matching set that makes Jess gasp with envy. Finally, she emerges wearing a beautiful, emerald green bra and cheeky panties that look like they were made for her.

Somehow, Rose’s confidence bolsters Rey’s spirit. Rose doesn’t look anything like the women on the walls, and yet she still possesses a self-assurance that comes from something less superficial than her face or her body.

“That’s it,” Jess says, clapping her hands. “Perfect.”

Rose shakes her head, flattered by the praise. “You next, Rey.”

“Oh. You don’t want to go, Jess?”  
  
A devious grin crosses Jess’s face. “I know my size, and everything looks good on me.”

With trepidation, Rey swaps places with Rose in the fitting room. But the moment she steps into the garments she’s picked out, she knows they aren’t right. They’re...awful. The padding in the structured bra attempts to form cleavage, pushing her breasts up unnaturally high. Rey crosses her arms over her chest, taking deep breaths. She can’t imagine wearing this for Kylo. It’s absurd.

“Rey?” asks Jess.

“I hate it,” Rey says simply. “Find me something else.”

“Okay, good, because honestly if you wasted your money on something so -”

There’s a muffled _oomph_ , and Rey strongly suspects that Rose has either stepped on Jess’s foot or elbowed her hard in the side.

“We’ll find something,” Rose assures her.

They take a long time. Rey strips out of her first failed attempt, and stands in front of the mirror, fighting the urge to put her normal clothing back on and march out of the store. After what seems like an eternity, Jess knocks on the door. 

“Here, darling,” she says, handing the new items through the crack in the door. “I have a feeling he’d like to see you in black.”

Heat blooms across Rey’s face as she wonders if everyone on the ship knows that she spends most of her evenings with Kylo, behind closed doors. She never should have trusted Jess to pick something out for her. There are two tiny pieces of black lace in her hands, with little structure and no paneling. Rey’s hands shake as she wordlessly slips into them, arms stiff at her sides, bracing herself to look into the mirror.

She opens her eyes. There is still color in her cheeks. The black lace is...stunning. Her tanned skin is visible beneath it, only marred by the occasional old, silver scar. The rest of her is too strong to be soft, but the delicate pattern of the lace adds something gentle. Maybe even feminine. The tiny curves of her breasts rise gently to fill the small cups, the lace ending half a centimeter above the dusky skin of her areola. A pale jewel the size of a raindrop adorns the valley between her breasts. Her nipples are clearly visible...dark brown and peaked…tiny freckles splattered across her chest and the tops of her breasts...

She turns, the dark lace accentuating her body, admiring for the first time how the slight curve of her rear narrows when it meets her lower back, narrowing further at her waist. She looks...she looks…not pretty, exactly, but...powerful and inviting and she _does not_ have the courage to wear this in front of Kylo Ren, even though she very much wants to.

“Come on,” Jess moans impatiently.

Rey steps out of the dressing room.

“You know, I heard Snoke has a price on Kylo’s head,” Jess says offhandedly, tilting her head as she evaluates Rey. “You might collect.”

 

* * *

 

 

Rey buries the too-expensive undergarments in the bottom of her bag. They haunt her for the rest of the trip, her mind sometimes thinking about them even when she and the girls are visiting art galleries and rooftop restaurants, stretching their meager paychecks thin. She tries the matching set on at least eight times, wondering if she’s imagining how her body looks in it. A part of her feels guilty about the money she spent...money that could feed an orphan on Jakku for a month. Another part of her, a selfish part of her, insists that she deserves something beautiful. 

On the fourth night of their stay, very late in the evening after she has settled under her sheets, she feels a tentative brush at the corner of her mind. She responds, letting him in.

_Are you asleep?_

_Not yet. Everything okay?_

There’s a slight hesitation from Kylo, as though he’s not sure how comfortable she is speaking with him like this after how quickly she’d shut him out before. It’s been a long time since they used the bond across long distances. He wants to give her space.

_I was actually going to ask you the same question. You seem...a bit tense. Or maybe...uncertain._

Rey wants to slam the doors of her mind again, but she resists. _It’s…_ She almost says ‘it’s nothing,’ but she doesn’t want to lie to him. _Can I ask you something?_

His answer is a low purr across the bond, implicit approval. _As though I could keep anything from you?_

_Do you like the way my body looks?_

His emotions are so sharp that her mind is flooded with an actual image of him: every line in his body goes taut, his broad chest bare as he sits up in bed, throwing the covers off to take the length of his dark room in a few strides, as if her question has released such rigid energy in him that he can’t lie still. His fist clenches...unclenches... 

_Do I...is this a trick?_

_No_ , she responds. _I’m just curious._

_You are...so...enticingly unaware of how you affect me._

He’s laughing out loud, warm and bright across the bond. He sets his back against his wall, his shoulders shaking, shocked at the absurd notion that there might be something, _anything_ , that he doesn’t find beautiful about her.

And then the laughter fades.

 _I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to ask that question_ , he tells her seriously. _I should have made it clear...but I thought perhaps my opinion was obvious. Yes. Yes, of course, I like the way your body looks._

As if to prove it, he shares a series of sensual memories with her, sending them hurtling across the bond: her hair unbound, splayed over his pillow, her legs thrown over his shoulders as he plunges into her...her lips, red from where he’d kissed her harshly only moments earlier, parting to wrap tightly around his length as she sucks and shatters him...the delicate slope of her back, arching as she fists at her sheets, her little cries filling the air every time he thrusts into her from behind...her soft, perfect breasts, dusted with freckles, completely enveloped by his hands as he twists and pulls at her nipples…

_Would you be offended if I said that your breasts are my...well, I suppose they’d be my second favorite thing about your body…_

Because sinking into her heat, feeling her come while he is still buried deep inside her, her walls fluttering and clenching around his length, is right at the top of his list.

He releases her from the sudden outpouring of memory and emotion. She gasps, alone once again in an unfamiliar hotel room. The experience of feeling his pleasure, from his perspective, is strange and exciting and it sends a line of heat through her. “Kylo?”

_Yes?_

Rey reaches out shyly to share with him the complimentary memories: the feeling of his shaft sinking into her, so deep that it tears a desperate cry from her throat and her thighs shake against his shoulders...his cock, hard and heavy on her tongue, his hands weaving into her hair to direct her...the tension he builds with every steady thrust, his chest against her back as her fingernails grasp at the sheets for the leverage to take him deeper…

 _One more_ , he begs her for that next memory. But he’s reached the heart of her insecurity, because liking the way her body feels is entirely different from liking the way it looks. She shakes her head, even though she knows he can’t see her.

_Kylo, I know you said that you like them, but...I don’t...I don’t really like the way they look, in that memory._

_What?_

_In your hands. They look...small._

For a terrible, heartstopping moment, the connection ends. He severs it without warning, as if he is so upset...so emotional...that he has to wrench himself away from her. Then he returns, but his next thought is not soft. It is frantic.

_EXPLAIN._

_I don’t know how._

_Try._

_I was in a store today. There were...holos. Of women._

Silence.

 _I didn’t look like them._  

_Don’t. Don’t. Don’t._

Rey starts shaking, his thoughts confusing and overwhelming. It takes him several long seconds to form coherent words instead of the torrent of...anger.

 _I’m not angry with you, Rey...I’m just...upset._  

_Why?_

_I just showed you something...Force, Rey. I’m not sure what else I could have done. I showed you my thoughts. About what it’s like to have my hands on you. To feel you...respond to me. To me, Rey, when you deserve someone so much more. After everything we’ve been through, to know that I’m the one you choose to give yourself to…and then you compare yourself to other women? As if you’re...what? A toy for me to play with? As if I could cut you up into little pieces and take only some of you?_

She covers her mouth with her hand, shocked at his reaction. He goes on mercilessly, the thoughts pouring out of him uncharacteristically. He rarely puts words to his emotions, normally gifting her those rare glimpses into himself with short, simple statements. This time, she’s hit some deep nerve inside him.

_I don’t want you in pieces. I want you whole. I want every single part of you. And for the record, it’s a turn on. Watching my hands cover your breasts, feeling how small they are, how soft, how sensitive…_

His voice in her mind takes on a new edge, the long days spent apart clearly affecting him. Dirty, pretty words spill out, the kind he usually reserves for when he’s already deep inside her: _When you get back, I’m going to drag you into my quarters and I’m going to come all over those pretty little tits. I’m going to suck your nipples until it’s too much and you scream for me to stop -_

She’s heard enough.

Kylo’s voice falters when she throws her mind wide open, kicks off her sheets, and shows him herself, lying on her hotel room bed, in nothing but her standard-issue sleeptunic, her legs bare. The black lace she wants to save for another time, when she can look into his eyes, but this is something she can give him now. 

Slowly, she unbuttons her tunic, exposing the gentle valley between her breasts. The bond flares with heat and arousal when she tugs the fabric to the side roughly, exposing her right breast to the cool air. Her nipple puckers, tightens, raises into a peak...and she begins to play, teasing and pulling, making sure he can see and hear and feel exactly what she is doing. The gap in her tunic only comes down to her sternum, so she palms her other breast through the coarse fabric, humming when her thumb drags roughly over the peak. After missing him for four days, every touch makes her desperate for more.

 _I think,_ Kylo says with careful precision, sitting down on the edge of his bunk. He releases his cock, wrapping his strong fingers around its considerable width, his long, harsh strokes forcing a hungry whimper out of her even with miles separating them. _You should come back a day early._

 

* * *

 

Rey finds Kylo on the training deck, halfway through a sim. It’s him against three newbies, fresh-faced kids with spotty skin. He’s giving pointers even as he flies to destroy them: watch your leader, the tracking system on the older models is delayed by a fifth of a second so aim slightly left, take care of each other out there.

Poe Dameron takes a position next to her, leaning on the railing to watch the recruits fly without ever leaving the hangar.

“He’s tough on them,” Rey winces as the screen lights up, indicating that their team leader’s engine is disabled, leaving them dead in the water.

“One day, they’re gonna be the ones watching my back. I’m glad he runs them ragged.” They watch together in silence for a few minutes, Poe’s eyes following the darting lines on the screen that show each fighter, each shot that makes contact with its target. “He’s doing well, you know. When the General told me he’d surrendered to the Resistance, I thought bringing him onto a starship was a terrible idea.”

“Because you didn’t trust him,” Rey says acceptingly, used to the wary glances that follow Kylo through the ship.

“No,” says Dameron, his brow furrowing. “Sometimes...sometimes war affects soldiers in ways that are...terrible. It makes them hard. If you’re wounded in a fight, they put you in medical. They make you rest. They give you time for the bacta to do its job. But when the wound is in here -” He taps two fingers against his forehead. “- it’s hard to say when you’re ready to step back onto the front lines. And I thought, if we brought him back here, he would never really heal. And I wanted that for Leia. I wanted her to have her son back.”

“Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“I appreciate...what you’re saying. Really, I do but...I don’t think she’s ever going to get him back,” Rey says quietly. “I don’t know who he was, before Snoke clawed his way in, but that person...I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Sometimes I forget,” Dameron muses. “I forget you never knew him before. I forget you took him exactly as he was when he came back.”

“What was he like?” Rey asks curiously. “You know...Ben Solo?”

The flight sim ends, and Kylo emerges from the dark cockpit of the mock TIE, his hair slightly damp with sweat from a standard-issue helmet. Sensing her presence nearby, he looks up at the surveillance platform. A faint smile crosses his lips, a tinge of masculine arrogance in his gaze, and she knows that he’s thinking of the way she’d shouted her pleasure across the bond the night before, her fingers buried deep inside of her.

She meets his eyes with a haughty smile of her own. He hadn’t exactly been _quiet_ either.

He grins in response, shaking out his dark hair, turning his attention to the kids. He motions with his hands to the massive holoscreen as the fight sequence replays, showing them where they’d gone wrong. In that moment, Rey knows that he’s here because he _wants_ to be here, not because his mother lives on this ship, or because Snoke is hunting him, or because of the connection he shares with her. He’s here for this. He’s here to fight, any way he can.

“Ben Solo was a lot like that guy,” Dameron says quietly.

Kylo wraps things up with the recruits and takes the stairs up to the platform two at a time. Rey is struck by an unfamiliar desire, more innocent than the ones they’d planted in each other's minds late last night. She steps forward to meet him, tilting her head up and rising on her toes to press the lightest brush of a kiss against his mouth, in front of Dameron and the recruits. With the tendency towards gossip on the ship, she might as well have kissed him on the main deck for everyone to see.

When she steps away, his jaw clenches tightly, and Rey wonders if what she’d just done was okay. Maybe they should have talked about it first. The space between one heartbeat and the next seems extraordinarily long to Rey.

“I missed you,” he states matter-of-factly, as if that simple kiss was the most natural thing in the galaxy. His eyes move up to Dameron, who has the good grace to keep his face blank of expression. “Are you taking over?” Kylo asks.

“Yeah,” Dameron says, nodding. “You’re good to go.”

 

* * *

 

After kissing Kylo on the training deck, Rey feels as though wearing the gift she’d bought for him on High Noktari should be easy. 

But she’s nervous.

She had everything planned out perfectly: she was going to wash every inch of her skin, shave the hair from her legs and underarms, apply lotion to her arms and stomach, and give her hair time to dry. At the usual time, she was going to slip on those delicate undergarments, then the gray training pants and jacket that she normally wears. He was supposed to open his door and take her in, no different than any other night at first glance.

Except he carries her bag straight to his quarters, not giving her the time or privacy to do any of the numerous things she had so carefully planned in advance. The moment his door closes, he drops her bag and walks her backward towards his bed, eyes dark with the promise of doing all the things he’d described to her over the bond.

She lets him kiss her, losing herself in the unexpected comfort of having him physically close after the days spent apart. His hands spread along her back, fingers digging into the sensitive place just under her ribcage, making her exhale sharply against his mouth.

Two more steps back, and he has her splayed out over the bed, crawling over her and settling against her. Her hands immediately reach for the roughspun material of his shirt, pulling it up and over his shoulders, her nails scraping along his back demandingly. His mouth assails hers, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opens for him. A groan escapes him when her touch becomes softer, her hands roaming over the bare skin of his torso, exploring the hard ridges of muscle that tense under her touch.

When he’s kissed her thoroughly, he draws back to sit on his knees, looking down at her. His palms splay over her slim thighs, yanking her up and against him, so that she has her legs wrapped around his torso and his knees under her lower back. She can feel the hard ridge of his erection pressed against her, and she tilts her hips up, trying to find friction.

“I missed you, too,” she moans breathlessly, fingers reaching for him impatiently. His eyes darken when she palms him through his clothing.

“Did you?” he breathes heavily.

She’s a coward. She should sit up and crawl into his lap and kiss him again, just under his jawline, and whisper close to his ear: _Wait here_. She should grab her bag and slip into the bathroom - nevermind that she doesn’t have the time to do everything she’d planned - and put on the black lace ensemble that showcases every inch of her skin.

Instead, she shucks out of her jacket and pulls her tunic up over her head, twisting her arms to remove it in one clean movement. She hadn’t bothered with wrappings, knowing that her jacket would cover her well enough. A quiet hum of approval resonates in Kylo’s chest as he drinks in the sight of her, his hands still gripping her thighs, his hips shoving once, twice, against her center.

“You are so beautiful,” he rasps.

She tilts her head. “You’re only saying that because I’m half naked in your bed.” 

“I’m not,” he groans, as her hands reach once more for the catch of his fitted flightpants. She drags her fingers in agonizing, slow strokes over the tented fabric. His lips quirk into a teasing grin. “I’m saying it because I want you _completely_ naked in my bed.”

She laughs, a bright peal in the semi-darkness of his quarters.

With an affectionate smile, he takes her wrist in his fingers, stilling her touch. He brings her hand up to his mouth, pressing a feathery kiss to her palm, and then the inside of her wrist, and her forearm, and the crook of her elbow.

The line of kisses continues more insistently, his back curving to gain access to her. His breath is hot against her shoulder, her collarbone, his teeth scraping the line of her throat. The flat of his tongue swipes roughly against the exposed peak of her breast, teasing her nipple into a tight bud. He sucks, hard, and then withdraws, letting the wetness cool against the raised flesh. She pushes up towards his mouth with a disappointed whimper. He looms over her, his breath ghosting on her cheek, their fingers interlaced beside her head.

Kylo pauses, pushing her hair out of her eyes with his free hand. “You are so beautiful. I mean it. I should tell you more often. I just didn’t think…” He considers her for a moment. “You’ve always been so self-assured. So confident. You never seemed to question whether I was attracted to you. I should have told you anyway.”

She swallows hard, closing her eyes against the rush of emotions that rise to the surface.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he murmurs, kissing one eyelid, and then the other.

“I just...I never even thought about it,” she says honestly. “When I was with you, I never once thought about what I looked like. Whether I was...whether you liked how I looked.” She burns with other awful thoughts. “And when I saw those women, they all looked so...so willing. So ready, as if they just...were _always_ ready, whenever, wherever...and they were pretty and clean, and all I could think about when I looked at them was how different you and I are.”

“Different?” he asks, no judgment in his voice.

She chokes out something between a laugh and a sob. “You have to remind me, sometimes, to shower, or...to do things that are probably really ordinary. I’d never even _taken_ a shower, or shaved my legs, or shampooed my hair before I started with the Resistance. Those sorts of things were luxuries for high-class people, core-world people. And all the women I saw on Jakku were dirty and wiry and thin and wrinkled from the sun. Not soft, or gentle, or well-spoken. And sex was...it was a waste of time and energy, to be honest. I didn’t think that it was something people ever did for fun.”  
  
His eyes widen in surprise, the fingers that are laced with hers tightening slightly. “You had sex on Jakku?” he asks, his voice tight as a coiled power cable.

“I...no...no, you were the first person I...but....other people did,” she stammers, thinking of the many times she’d stumbled upon interlocked couples in Niima after-hours, half-clothed and rutting against each other like animals. She’d been made offers, but the entire thing seemed dull and wasteful at best...and at worst, if the man wasn’t considerate or the woman wasn’t willing, painful. In any case, women never seemed to enjoy those encounters as much as their male counterparts, and when Rey needed to, she could pleasure herself much more effectively. “Why?”  
  
“No reason,” he murmurs, his expression clearing. “What does any of that have to with the differences between us?”

Rey struggles for words. “I mean...it’s just that you’re so...meticulous.”

“Meticulous,” he repeats, as if that’s not the most flattering word he would have chosen to describe himself. “Careful, sweetheart. My ego might get out of hand.”

“You know what I mean,” she replies.

“I’m not sure I do.”

“You grew up in the Core. You’re educated, you’re…” She motions at his bare chest, his broad shoulders. “You’re strong. Handsome. I don’t know how you do it, but...you must shave twice a day, even when everything’s falling to shit, because I’ve never once seen you with stubble. You speak _fourteen_ languages. When you sit, when you talk, when you eat...it’s like you have rules for everything that I don’t know about.”

He shrugs. “There _are_ rules for everything when it comes to Alderaanian etiquette. I rather like watching you break those rules. I only remind you sometimes because I think you get caught up in being useful, or because you feel guilty for the little pleasures that you have always thought wasteful. You forget to put yourself before other people…to take time to do things for yourself.”

“But the women you were with before -” she objects.

“I had no women before you,” he counters simply.

She blinks in disbelief. “What?”

“There were no women before you,” he repeats.

“But you must have…” She trails off at the serious look in his eyes. “Not even before the First Order? Before he -”

“There was no _before_ ,” Kylo tells her sharply. “He was always there, from the beginning. There was no room for anything else in my mind other than what he planted there. And when the bond with you fell into place, it was like...it was like coming up from dark, dark waters...into air. And sunlight. And it was painful, because I’d never had to breathe or see before. And I never dreamed that you might one day…” He breaks off, as if struck with sudden vulnerability. “So I had no women before you, though I’m flattered you didn’t notice my complete inexperience.”

She blushes red. “How would I have noticed?” she asks defensively. “I had nothing to compare it to. It’s not like I would have known the difference between good sex and bad sex.”

He traces his fingertips across the taut flesh of her stomach, gripping her hip firmly, pushing himself against her heat once more. He’s still hard, and the knowledge that he hasn’t lost interest in her over the course of this conversation makes her shiver. He undoes the catch on her pants, lifting her hips and dragging them down her legs along with her simple white undergarment.  

He draws a finger along her folds, his touch light as wind against her, testing her wetness. She throws her head back against his sheets, aching for him.

“You would have known,” he murmurs simply, and she understands. If she had been left wanting, that ache still throbbing in her center, satisfaction just beyond her reach...she would have known. The same way she doesn’t have to look beyond these four walls to know that she will never want anyone else other than him.

“So the first time that we…?” she gasps, thinking back to the night she’d first come to him, trembling with a mixture of want and nerves. She remembers the frantic, rushed way he’d touched her, years of emotions, both good and bad, rising to the surface. Their first nights together had been overwhelming and intense, the bond heightening everything, a mix of discomfort and pleasure as they both learned what she liked and disliked, wanted and didn’t want. He’d said so little, been so quiet, as if he was scared that every time would be the last time she walked through his door.

His eyes darken in confirmation. “Yes.”

Kylo helps her sit up flush against him, still on his knees, reaching down between their bodies to release his cock from his pants. The ache inside of her becomes more insistent. A bead of wetness is already gathered at the tip. She swipes it away with a brief touch of her thumb against the head of his length, suddenly reminded of his promise to come on her breasts. The thought of his release trailing white and hot against the gentle slope of her cleavage makes her breath quicken, and she shifts so that his cock drags along her folds, seeking some kind of respite.

She hovers above him questioningly, torn between the all-consuming need to feel him deep inside her and the exquisite fantasy in her mind. Impulsively, she brings the pad of her thumb to her mouth and licks the salty taste of him from her finger.

“Another time,” Kylo grunts, making the choice for her. His eyes are fixed on her tongue, clouded with arousal. “Right now I want to be inside you.”

He grips her waist tight in his hands, helping her rise up, and then the tip of his cock pushes against her entrance. He guides her onto him, and Rey feels every inch of him as she sinks down, her walls enveloping his shaft.

She uses his shoulders to bring herself up again, his hands on her waist helping her. It’s a different feeling, the slow rise and fall of her body, his strong thighs supporting her weight as she moves. The thrusts of his cock are deep, but not harsh, a gentle rocking that has her clenching around him every time he pulls her back down onto him.

Then, as if to soften her movements further, he lifts her knees from where they are pressed beside him on the mattress, wrapping her legs around his back without ever leaving her. The way they are positioned, wrapped fully around each other, is so intimate that it makes her dizzy as he thrusts his hips experimentally against hers. He captures her mouth in a heated kiss, his tongue stroking hers, making her moan. Her nails scrape along his shoulders, seeking purchase as his cock brushes against a sensitive spot inside her. She gasps against his mouth, moving her hips in slow, circular movements, until he is hitting that place over...and over…and over...

“That’s it, sweetheart.”

He draws her back slightly, just enough that he can watch her move over him. He supports her back with one arm, his free hand palming the weight of her right breast in his hand. She whimpers, her walls tightening around him as he twists and pulls at her nipple.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says reverently as she arches her back towards his touch. His eyes fall on the curves of her breasts, and darken. He alternates between the two, palming the weight of each in turn, his fingers becoming harsher on her sensitive nipples with each pass. Her walls begin to flutter around him, just on the edge of her release.

“Kylo...please, I’m so…ah...” Her voice is a broken sob as he removes the solid weight of his arm from her back, covering a breast with each hand and twisting roughly on the raised peaks. She is forced to claw at his shoulders and back to steady herself, to find the leverage to continue dragging his cock against that perfect spot in her core. 

“You look so beautiful, fucking yourself on my cock,” he tells her, watching her breasts move with every thrust, every gasp. He leans forward to accompany the harsh movements of his fingers with the heat of his mouth, his tongue rasping against her nipple.

“I’m so close,” she whispers. “I need…”

He bites down, hard, on the soft skin on the side of her breast, and the sharp pain makes her push just so against him, pleasure coursing through her in waves.

When she finally stills against him, he presses a soft kiss to each nipple. She shudders, over sensitive in the wake of her release. It is only after several long moments that she realizes he is still hard, throbbing inside her.

“Kylo,” she cries out as he lifts her slightly, never leaving her as he lays her down against his sheets.

He begins moving against her again, looming over her with his weight on his hands, his body so much larger than her own. This is not the gentle rocking she’d taken her own pleasure with. Every chaotic thrust sends a new shudder through her, driving her towards...towards…

Her eyes flutter open, locking with his. She’s never felt this before, a second orgasm chasing the first. Deliberately, Kylo moves his hands over her thighs, unlocking her legs from his waist and spreading her open. With each unforgiving thrust, her thighs shake. She closes her fingers around his sheets, writhing under him.

“Kylo,” she whispers, in awe of how stunning he is, of the power in his body, and how carefully he navigates the line between gentleness and roughness.

He is deep in his own pleasure now, his hair messy and damp with the exertion, his forearms trembling. Staggered moans escape from his chest, his shoulders tense, his breathing heavy. But he reaches down close to where they are joined, as if he knows that she is close again. His thumb presses in circles against her clit.

“Kylo,” she gasps once more.

She shatters around him for a second time, coaxing his own release from him. He shouts her name, gripping her hips as he thrusts through his orgasm. She feels him empty himself inside of her, feels his pleasure through their bond, feels the depth of his emotion for her…something so great and immense that she wonders how she had ever thought it breakable.

When he becomes soft and slips out of her, instead of accepting that separation, she pulls herself against him, kissing him everywhere she can reach, settling back into his arms.

“Stay with me tonight?” he asks.

 

* * *

 

“Was it okay that I kissed you?” she whispers, her smaller frame still curled against him. He runs hot, as if his heart is a burning sun, his skin always warmer than hers. But this is space, and her desert blood runs cold, so she presses the line of her body against his warmth and sighs contentedly.

She traces the strong line of his brow with her fingertips, looking into his eyes, thinking that she might actually love him. Not one day in the future, when everything is put right. Not when the lingering darkness in him is eradicated, or when Snoke is dead, or when the war is over. She might love him right now, in this moment.

“On the training deck?” he asks.

She nods. “Should I have asked you first?”

His hand trails down her spine, his face unreadable.

“I don’t want you to be hurt, by being with me,” he says cautiously. “I don’t want your reputation to be questioned. I want to spare you the looks. The whispers. The rumors. And when the fight with the First Order comes to me, because it will come to me...I don’t want him to be able to use you against me. I don’t want him anywhere near you. I don’t want him to know that you are the single most important thing to me, because if he knew...then he would do everything in his power to find you. He would own me again, and I can’t...Rey, it would kill me. To let him have that power over me again...that would kill me.”

She traces the scar on his face, the mark she’d put there years ago, and he shudders. “He doesn’t own you. Whatever happens to me...you will always belong to yourself.”

“When that day comes,” he says quietly. “A part of me wants you on the other side of the galaxy. I want you as far away from me as possible.”

She smiles softly, as if to tell him that will never happen. When the First Order finds him, she’ll be right there next to him.

“But the truth is, despite the danger, despite the fear of losing you...What I want more is you with me, fighting at my side.”  
  
“So does that mean I _can_ kiss you in public?” she quips.

He smiles, brilliantly. Across the bond, galaxies are born, stars careening into being. “You can kiss me wherever you like.”

 

* * *

 

In the morning, she wakes earlier than Kylo, the gentle thrum of the ship beneath them almost luring her back to sleep. Almost.

She pulls herself away from his heat reluctantly, the air of the room cool against her bare skin. As she stands, she fights a groan. There is a different ache inside her now, a sensitive awareness between her thighs of how fiercely he’d taken her the night before. Her whole body is sore, sated, satisfied, and yet without him inside her, she wants him all over again.

She takes her bag from the floor, grabbing a few toiletries and stepping into the refresher. It’s a different layout than her own quarters, more compact and efficient. A small shelf, a sink fastened to the wall, a mirror, a stand-up shower, a toilet…all cramped into a four-by-three meter space.

She takes in the sight of her face and torso in the mirror: there is a red, raw mark on the delicate skin of her breast where Kylo had marked her with his teeth. She touches it, liking it somehow.

The shower is separated from the rest of the space by a glass panel that offers no privacy. _At least it’s a water unit, and not a sonic_ , Rey thinks gratefully as she turns on the shower and steps under the steady spray. The water is warm at best, but it soothes the tension in her muscles and makes her skin feel clean.

As she washes her hair and swipes a razor quickly along her legs, she notes that Kylo’s personal items are minimal. A white bar of soap, a bottle of hair product, a razor that looks much sharper than the cheap version given to Resistance fighters. She opens the hair product curiously, inhaling, a faint scent of something wild and plantlike greeting her. A green smell that reminds her of the woods of Takodana, of tall mountains, of Kylo himself.

“You can use it if you want,” his voice greets her.

She turns to find him standing in the doorway, leaning back against the frame to look at her through the glass, his eyes roaming over her appreciatively.

“Then we’d smell the same,” she points out. “You can join me, though. Unless you don’t have time?”

“I have time,” he says. “I have the late afternoon shift.”

He steps into the shower, a draft of air following him in while the door is open, making her crowd under the flowing water. After a few minutes, she switches places with him and lets him clean himself. The corded muscles in his arms flex as he washes his hair and covers his skin in soap. And then he does the same to her, his touch efficient, not intending to arouse her. He massages soap over her thighs and her waist and down her shoulders and arms. As if he senses that she is still tender from last night, he is particularly careful on her breasts, palms sliding over them lightly. His fingers brush against the curve where he’d bitten her, as if to apologize for his roughness.

It’s something they’ve never done before, and she bites her lip, watching rivers of soapy water stream down his broad chest, the jut of his hipbones, his legs. His body is different than it is when they are normally together - he is relaxed, falling into his routine. His cock is soft, even though they are naked together.

“See something you like?” he asks, faint lines appearing at the corner of his eyes. Quickly, she tears her eyes back up to his, even though she is fascinated and curious by the way his body looks when he’s not aroused.

Rey blushes and moves back under the water with him to rinse the soap from her body. She curls her arms around him, feeling the planes of his back under her palms. “You know we’ve never spent the night together?” she answers his question with another.

“Mhm,” he murmurs against her wet hair. “You should stay more often.”

An invitation. They stand there for a long time, wasting water. Rey, oddly, doesn’t care at all. His hands stroke soothing circles over her shoulders, her back. Slowly, his shaft hardens against her belly, the close proximity affecting him.

He presses a kiss to her forehead, a soft sigh brushing her brow. “Ignore it, sweetheart.”

She does. They stand there for a few more minutes, as she gathers her courage.

“I bought you something,” she whispers against his shoulder.

“You did?” He draws back, taking her face between his hands.

She nods. “While I was on Noktari. It’s...it’s sort of a…a gift.”

“That is very kind of you.”

Such a diplomatic answer. But his eyes gleam, and Rey starts to think he already suspects the nature of  this gift.

“Could you just….give me a minute?” she asks, self conscious all over again under the heat of his gaze, before she realizes that they’re standing together, fully unclothed, every inch of her body on display to him, and he’s still looking at her like she is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Her insecurity disappears and suddenly she _wants_ to wear those pretty lace garments for him. 

He shakes his head, leaning down to give her an impatient kiss. “Don’t take too long.”

 

* * *

 

He’s beautiful, dark hair wet and curling slightly against his forehead, sitting naked on the end of his bed. Their bed? The bunk is too small for two people. In truth, it’s probably too small for him, but he’s always made room for her somehow...and last night, they’d slept so close together that Rey had felt every breath in his chest, every silent shudder when a brief nightmare chased him.

Maybe that was why he’d never asked her to stay.

Kylo is in almost exactly the same place he’d appeared to her the night he’d reached out to her through the bond on Noktari. Seated at the edge of his bunk, shoulders framed by the transparisteel viewport, a smattering of stars behind him. He is waiting for her, his erection hard and his hands resting at his sides.  

When she emerges into the dim light, his fists clench and he leans forward slightly, drinking in the sight of her.

“Come here,” he commands. 

She takes another step, and then another, feeling exposed and excited and nervous in a way she hasn’t felt in a long time. She tentatively reaches out to him, trying to sense his emotions, but his mind is a hazy mess of arousal, as though her tanned skin wrapped in tiny scraps of black illusion lace has driven all coherent thought from his mind.

He reaches out for her, pulling her forward so that she is standing between his legs. She brushes her fingers over his strong shoulders, and into his hair, loving the way his eyes darken at the soft contact.

He presses his hand along the small of her waist, the underside of her lace-covered breast, until he is palming her through the fabric. Rey’s hands tighten where they are threaded into his hair as he drags his thumb over her nipple, teasing it into a peak. 

“This is a very good color on you.”

She whimpers, his touch light and soft and not nearly enough for her. He plays with her small breasts for a long time, not removing the lace, but using it to heighten her experience. It’s so different from the calloused skin on his fingers, soft but slightly scratchy. A pressure builds between her thighs, and she wants his fingers somewhere else.

“Please…” she begs breathlessly. “Please, could you touch me?”

“Where?”

She whimpers again.

“Words, sweetheart.”

“Inside me,” she whispers. His cock twitches slightly, neglected and swollen, the head leaking with a clear fluid that makes her want to take him in her mouth and taste it.

He trails one hand down the flat of her stomach, until his fingers brush over the lace between her legs. It is wet, drenched with her arousal…for half a moment, Rey thinks about how expensive it is, how she doesn’t want to ruin it, until he drags the lace to the side and pushes a finger inside her. When she mewls desperately, he adds another, thrusting them and curling them deep inside her. 

“You’re so wet…” He removes his fingers, pushing them through her folds, brushing in circles over her clit. There is awe in his voice when he speaks. “Even after last night...you’re so _slick_ and _tight_ , ready for me again…”

When he starts to thrust his fingers inside her again, Rey shuts her eyes, the curve of his fingers inside her and the soft caress of his other hand on her breast drawing a series of sweet, sharp cries from her. She can hear his fingers thrusting, coated with her essence, and the sound sends her over the edge, her thighs closing around his hand to keep his fingers still as she clenches around them.

He soothes her when she is finished, removing his fingers from her heat to lightly trace her clit, her folds, the inside of her thighs. Then he withdraws his fingers entirely and lifts them to her lips.

 _Oh_ , she thinks wildly. Because she’s tasted him before, but never her own fluids. She licks his finger tentatively: it’s not a bad taste, but strange and unfamiliar, and for some reason she thinks she prefers the heady taste of his come in her mouth. But the sheer lust on his face when her tongue flicks out over the rough pad of his finger makes her finish, drawing his fingers into her mouth until he’s clean.

She presses one last kiss to his fingers.

“I want you to…” she starts to say, her desire clouding her mind before reason cuts her off.

“Anything,” he assures her. “Ask me. I’ll give you anything.”

She bites her lip. She knows what she wants. She wants his come on her breasts, white staining the black lace, or maybe she wants to feel it in hot ropes on her bare skin, across her nipples…

She sinks to her knees, her mind made up.

She takes his cock in both of her hands, lacing her fingers together, her thumbs resting against the vein that runs along the underside of his length. Kylo clenches his jaw, his eyes wide and fixed on her. This is clearly not what he expected. With agonizing slowness, she tightens her grip and slides her hands towards the head of his cock, her thumbs grazing over the tip in a circle.

“Force,” he chokes out. She glides her palms down, and then back up in a smooth motion, her interlaced fingers creating a different sensation than he is used to. Her thumbs caress the head again briefly, tormenting him as she works his length with tight, even strokes. His hips thrust against her hands involuntarily. “Rey…if you keep…I’m not going to last…” 

She looks into his eyes. “I don’t want you to,” she tells him boldly.

Realization flickers across his expression: his cock is pointed directly at her chest as she pumps him with both hands in fluid, deft strokes.

“Rey... _gods_...I know I said…but…” He fights for words, all coherent thought driven out by the pressure in his groin and his cock. “You don’t have to…”

“You promised,” she whispers. “You said you would.”

She’s not sure if she’s talking about when they were separated - when he’d told her explicitly that he would come on her tits - or just now, when he’d promised her anything she asked for.

His hands tremble as she continues the smooth, steady strokes with her hands. He shakes his head. “I want...fuck, I love the way you look in these…” His eyes roam over the dark lace framing her body. “But I think I want to come on _you_ ,” he admits, as if his thoughts have made him feel guilty. As if he’s worried about what she’ll think of him now.

She stops for a moment, rising up on her knees to kiss him, her hands resting on his strong thighs. She kisses him to remind him that everything they do together is because they _both_ want it. “I want that, too.”

He swallows hard, his jaw clenched, nodding sharply. “Come here, then. I want to be able to touch you.”

She obeys, and his hands immediately go to her dark underwear, dragging them down her thighs and letting them pool on the floor. She steps out of them, and he catches her knee in his grip.

“Come here,” he says again. She shakes her head, confused.

“But-”

“Trust me, sweetheart.”

So she crawls into his lap, her thighs around him, his length trapped against her stomach. His hand cups the back of her neck as he draws her in for another kiss. He only breaks apart to trail his hand along the last piece of her remaining clothing: the tiny bra that covers her breasts. Bowing his head to place a kiss on the bare skin just above the pale, tear-shaped jewel adorning the center, he murmurs, “I don’t want to rip this. I’d like to see you wear it again.”

“Here,” she shows him, tapping the tiny, hidden double-clasp on the front. She expects him to struggle, his large hands seeming so at odds with the delicate task, but the clasp comes undone with very little effort.

Whatever patience he’d shown her while she’d readied herself, while he’d given her her own pleasure, disappears the moment she is bare before him. He shifts the thin straps down over her shoulders and off her arms, throwing it away into the semi-darkness of the room.

He turns them around and lays her down beneath him, nuzzling and sucking at her breasts, thrusting his cock against her thigh desperately.

“Let me…” she breathes, pushing on his shoulders, remembering how close he’d been before and knowing that he needs attention. She reaches for his shaft, but he captures her hand and stops her, a look of warning in his eyes. He rises up, crawling over her so that his powerful thighs are on either side of her waist, a position of dominance that makes her glad that he can’t see her rub her thighs together behind him. Like before, his cock is pointed at her chest, but now she is splayed out beneath him and he has full access to her.

He keeps her hand trapped in his own, the look in his eyes enough to keep her from reaching the other out to wrap her fingers around him.

“I don’t want you to touch me,” he murmurs, taking her free hand and forcing her to splay her fingers flat against her stomach. Then, slowly, he moves her wrist down, under his cock, between _his_ thighs, and finally between her own.

“I already-”

“Again,” he says simply. His voice is unyielding; greedy, now that he knows she can reach her orgasm more than once. “I want you to come for me _again_." 

He takes his cock in his hand, pumping himself, and the sight is so unexpectedly stunning - his fingers running lightly over the head, tightening on the downward stroke - that she starts moving her hand between her legs without thinking.

“If I let you go,” he groans, his strokes becoming harsh and erratic. “Will you stay like this?”

The pleasure written across his face makes her move the fingers between her legs more urgently against her clit. She nods quickly, fisting her other hand into the sheets beside her head to keep from being tempted.

“Good,” he says, releasing her wrist. And then he begins to play with her breasts, running his fingers delicately over them, the ghost of the touch she needs. She moans softly, sucking in little gasps when he cups one gently in his hand and runs his thumb over her nipple in quick circles.

For the first time, she understands what he’d meant when he told her that _this_ was arousing to him. His hand is so much larger than the gentle swell of her breast, her dusky nipple tight and hard under his thumb. His largeness doesn’t make her feel small, or insignificant.  It makes her feel _powerful_. Because even though he’s above her, he’s still worshiping her body... _she’s_ the reason his hand is wrapped around his own cock, _she’s_ the reason his pupils are blown wide and fixed on her, _she’s_ the reason he can barely draw breath.

When he comes, he fists his hand around his length and strokes himself through his orgasm, spilling onto the curve of her breast, over his fingers that are teasing her peak. He gathers the weight of her breast in his hand, giving himself another stroke, and his come erupts again over her nipple and the softer skin around it, white against the darker peak. She touches herself to the sight of him coming on her body, the last of the thick ropes scattering over her chest and collarbone, pale flecks covering her freckles.

He stops touching himself, his cock oversensitive, looking down at her. “Gods, Rey...you’re so pretty...I wish I could tell you what you look like right now...”

She throws her head back, pushing her fingers inside her heat, as he runs a finger through the mess on her chest, down to her nipple. At the tender contact against the sensitive tip, her walls tighten around her fingers and his name escapes from her throat: “Kylo... _Kylo_ , please…”

He bends down and kisses her, claiming her soft cries. His thumb slides across the wrist of the hand she had clenched into his sheets, tapping it softly.

“ _Please_ ...oh…oh _gods,_ please let me…”

“Okay.”

Rey shoves her hand between her thighs, touching her clit in tandem with the thrusts of her other fingers. Kylo draws back, eyes roving over her, until they finally return to her own.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” he urges. “You look so pretty. So beautiful with your hands between your legs, touching yourself, with my come all over you.”

His words send her over the edge. She shatters, the push of her hips stilled by his thighs above her, her core pulsing around her fingers for several long moments, until she is shaking and spent under him. He kisses her on the sensitive place just under her ear. “Sweetheart?”

She sighs, nodding. He kisses her forehead, her cheek, the curve of her jaw.

“Don’t move,” he murmurs.

“Okay,” she whispers, her throat tight. 

He rises, the tall, broad weight of his body heaving with the effort. He must be just as spent as she is. But he trails his hand along her thigh, caressing her softly.

“I’ll be right back.”

She nods again, closing her eyes. She hears the click of the refresher door opening, the sound of water running. And then there is something warm and soft against the flat of her stomach, then the swell of her breast. Her eyes flutter open at the comforting sensation, watching as he drags a damp cloth over her skin, cleaning the evidence of him away. She closes her eyes again, content to let him do this for her.

  
When he’s finished, he returns to her, settling in beside her. She shivers, the slight dampness on her skin giving her a chill, until he pulls her to his chest and all his warmth seeps into her. She wants to say something...wants to tell him something...but her eyelids are heavy and there is a blissful peace in her mind...

 

* * *

 

When she wakes again, she panics for a moment, wondering how long she’s been asleep. Her rest had been dreamless and deep, and it feels like she has slept for days.

“It’s only twelve hundred hours,” Kylo tells her, standing at the tiny dresser in the corner of the room. He’s not wearing his casual black pants or tunic, the clothes he usually wears when he has nowhere to be, or even a standard simulation flightsuit.

He’s wearing a uniform.

She sits up, clutching her sheets around her, a tightness in her throat and chest.

“You said you didn’t have to be anywhere,” she says, her voice small.

“I said I had the late afternoon shift,” he corrects her, smoothing his hands over imaginary wrinkles in the uniform. It is pristine, new. It has probably never been worn before. There is a decoration on his chest, some low-ranking officer insignia. Captain, maybe.  

Her mind spins. “So where are you going now?”

He pauses, and she realizes that she really doesn’t want to have this conversation unclothed. She throws off her covers, standing and heading to the refresher, trying to find her bag. Kylo appears behind her, holding out one of his own large shirts.

“I can dress myself,” she snaps, finally finding her bag. She hates that he could sense what she needed without telling him, and hates it even worse that he can probably sense her anger over the bond. She can’t find her grey training pants, so she pulls out her sleepshirt and tugs it roughly over her head.

She faces him, crossing her arms. “Where, Kylo?”

He looks painfully good in the Resistance uniform, his broad shoulders and powerful body filling every inch of it. The dark green of the uniform, a forest green, contrasts with his pale skin and dark hair. He looks clean and well-dressed and _handsome_.

“While you were gone,” he says quietly. “Admiral Ackbar came to see me.”

“What did he want?” she asks.  
  
“He wanted me to accept a formal command position,” Kylo tells her.

“And you did,” she says. There is an ache in her chest. She’s not ready for this. She wants more time. She wants things to stay as they are.

“I…” Kylo looks away, out the viewport, silent for a long moment. He seems to grapple with something internally, weighing his decision on some scale. “They only want me because I’ve fought with the First Order. I know their strategies. I know the way Snoke thinks. And Hux.” He sighs, resigned, looking back to her. “I think we’re losing the war.” 

Rey’s eyes widen. “What?”

“It’s the only reason they would risk giving me a position of command,” he says simply. “For the balance of risk to fall on the side of accepting a former ally of the Order into their ranks...we must be losing badly.”

_And when the fight with the First Order comes to me, because it will come to me…_

Tears spring into her eyes. “You knew all this. When I came back. _Before_ I came back. And you didn’t tell me.”

His lips part, stunned. “I didn’t think you would…”

“What? You didn’t think I would care? You don’t think that your decisions affect me?”

“No! No, of course not. I just didn’t think you would want to hear it when we were apart. I wanted to tell you in person.”

“But you didn’t even _ask_ me,” she says, her heart breaking.

“I…” Kylo seems lost for words. “I didn’t know you wanted to be asked. I didn’t think…I didn’t think we were at a point where we…”

“Where we what?” Rey prompts him.

“I didn’t think we had that kind of say in each other’s lives,” he finishes quietly, looking away. “I know my decisions affect you. But it works both ways, Rey. Your decisions affect me, too. Do think it’s easy for me, knowing you’re out there fighting when I’m here, just waiting and...and worrying for you...?”

His stumbling words soften the blunt edges of her anger and hurt, and she remembers that he is just as new to this as she is. She thinks of all the things she does, the risks she takes because she has a power the Resistance desperately needs. Not once has she asked for his permission to put herself in that danger. She’s never considered what it’s like for him to watch her go on missions, to fight for what she believes in, when he’s forced to stay behind.

“Is that what you want?” he questions. “Do you want a say in my life?”

_Do you want me to have a say in yours?_

“I want us to make decisions together,” she breathes.

“So do I,” Kylo replies, taking her face gently in his hands. “Rey?”

“Yes,” she answers.

He smiles cleverly, his thumb brushing across her cheek. “What do you think of this uniform?”

She shakes her head, knowing that he's not asking her about the uniform. He's asking for her approval, her support of his choice. She steps closer to run her hands over his shoulders, ghosting her fingers down the line of perfect, black metal buttons that run from his neck to his waist. She wants more time...but if his suspicions are true, they may not have it. 

“Are you ready?” she asks hesitantly, thinking of Dameron’s warning to her on the training deck. The scar on Kylo’s face is healed, but if he rejoins the fight now, what will it do to his mind and his heart? 

There is a hard look in his eyes. “I have to be.”

“No,” she insists, because she doesn’t care how bad things are for the Resistance. He’s not just a soldier, a machine they can use to their advantage, a weapon to be wielded against the First Order. Losing the war would be easier than losing him. “You don’t.”

“This is what I want,” he tells her. “This is what feels _right_ to me. Rey. Let me do this. Let me fight with you.”

It’s their decision. Their bed, their room. Their burden and their sacrifice. He is making room in his life for her. It’s their fight, and their future that hangs in the balance.

She kisses him, telling him with something other than words that it’s not his battle to fight alone.

“I think you look good in a uniform,” she admits, drawing back to look into his eyes. “I have one condition, though.”

“Name it.”

“Make sure dispatch puts us on the same rotation.”

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the amazing reylorobyn2011.
> 
> I hope this fic reminds everyone to love their boobs no matter what. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and reviewing! <3


End file.
